


Indiana Jones and the Beijing Treasure

by Jennichi



Category: Indiana Jones Series
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2005-12-21
Updated: 2005-12-21
Packaged: 2018-01-25 01:19:39
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,056
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1623953
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Jennichi/pseuds/Jennichi
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It all started with a letter, as so many things do. Now Indiana Jones finds himself caught in war-torn China in 1938.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Indiana Jones and the Beijing Treasure

**Author's Note:**

> Written for marginaliana

 

 

It all started with a letter, as so many things do. It was a small and unassuming letter, from a name with no particular significance attached to it, and as such it spent several months buried under a pile of mail on Professor Jones's desk. If there had been anything out of the ordinary about it his secretary would have sorted it into the pile of "Important" correspondence, and it might have been looked at as early as August. Unfortunately, it wasn't until a cold, windy day in December when Indiana was caught all evening at the university during a particularly nasty blizzard that the letter was unearthed.

"Dear Dr. Jones," it began.

_Dear Dr. Jones, I am writing to inform you of TERRIBLE events told to me by my COUSIN MARTIN SYSKOV who traveled to the HEATHEN country of the CHINAMEN._

It went on in similar style for three pages, and Indiana stared at the letter in disbelief. "Why do I always get the crackpots?" He crumpled it up and tossed it into the corner, then worked steadily through the rest of the backlog of mail as the storm raged outside. It was only when he had finished every scrap of paperwork in the office, catalogued the seventy-eight new Grecian coins in the battered box on top of the shelf of African fetish objects, and practiced knife throwing with his letter opener for over two hours that he gave in to the inevitable and opened the crushed letter once more.

He was half-way through the second page before the story he was reading began to make sense, but when it did he let out a long, low whistle. China suddenly seemed like a much better travel destination than that site in Turkey the head of the department had been urging him to visit for two months now. Especially since it was _Indiana's_ "vacation."

_________________________________________

**China, January 1938**

There were problems involved in traveling anywhere at the moment, as the world was quickly slithering down a slippery slope into insanity. China posed its own special problems; everyone seemed to be fighting with everyone else. The Nationalists were fighting the Communists, and though you'd think they would work together to drive out the Japanese, well, apparently that was a bit too much to hope for.

Everyone was starving.

Indiana had been to terrible places before--to poor jungle villages and drought-plagued farms along the Sahara--but the hollow-eyed hunger in the people of Beijing was something new. His guide, Chang, steered him clear of the worst of it, but the air was thick with tension.

"Why are you going to Zhoukodian, Dr. Jones?" they had asked him, the remaining faculty at Beijing University--those who were still alive and hadn't fled. They were frightened and hostile. Indiana couldn't blame them, not after what he'd heard had happened to the crew caught out at the Zhoukodian site when the Japanese army invaded the nearby city of Beijing. "What is it you want so bad you'd walk through a war for it?"

In the end they had agreed to help him, suspicious as they were of his motives. Chang was the embodiment of that help, being a student of archaeology who had been to the caves before. "What you are looking for, if it exists, was near _Longgushan_ ," they told him.

 _Longgushan_. Dragon Bone Hill. For thousands of years the area had been mined for its bones, because of the medicinal properties they were believed to hold. It was less than twenty years ago that the amazing record of human evolution preserved there had been recognized by scientists. It was an overnight international sensation proving the antiquity of man in the Orient. But Indiana was there for something else.

What the excitable Mrs. Bradshaw's cousin Martin Syskov had seen, or believed he had seen, was the removal of a crumbling chest from the depths of the caves by the Japanese troop which had massacred the excavators. The Soviet ambassador had been fleeing from Beijing with his staff. While passing through the twisted and eroded limestone landscape they had nearly crested the wrong ridge and revealed themselves to the invading troops. Instead, dropping to his knees, Syskov had watched the Japanese officer open the chest and exclaim out loud. Grabbing a pair of binoculars from one of his staff, Syskov had caught a glimpse of bound stacks of bamboo strips. "Texts, Dr. Jones!" Mrs. Bradshaw's letter proclaimed. "And my cousin makes a hobby of the study of Chinese bronzes, so he could identify the style of that chest. It was Western Zhou, prior to the Burning of the Books in 213 B.C.! Texts thought DESTROYED for over two thousand years!"

It was possible. Possible that scholars fleeing the Qin emperor's decree had hidden some of their precious texts in the Zhoukodian caves. Possible that they had survived two thousand years. Possible that the Chinese archaeologists had discovered them, but not lived to tell the tale. Possible that Chinese historical records could now stretch even further back into the past, illuminating the answers to countless questions posed by antiquarians, historians, and archaeologists. Indiana was determined to find out.

The caves would be empty now, but Indiana wanted to see for himself before he made any moves to track down the missing chest. Chang led him through the barren and stripped areas of the cave, between piles of back-dirt thrown to the side during the excavation. "They were working in location one at last report," the student explained. "Trying to duplicate their success with the skull. So if anything was unearthed on that last day, it would have probably been in..." he pointed, "... _this_ area."

They searched the rocky floor for several hours, peering around for signs of a chest-shaped hole or any other kind of clue. Finally Indiana dropped down against a wall and tilted his hat back with one dirt-streaked finger. "There's nothing here." Frustration and impatience was clear in his tone. "I've got no idea what regiment or troop was here either. Damn."

Chang opened his mouth to reply, but suddenly Indiana held up a finger for silence. He rolled up onto the balls of his feet and crept forward, toward a protrusion of rock that hid the entrance of the cave from sight. He was ready and waiting when the soldier came around, and knocked the gun from the hand of the surprised Japanese. They both dove for it, wrestling. "Get the gun!" Indiana snarled at Chang as he fought to keep the soldier from getting a fatal grip on his throat.

Chang's voice might have sounded unsure, but his aim was steady. "I have it, Dr. Jones. You!" he barked in passable Japanese. "Up, NOW!"

The two men stumbled to their feet, the soldier with his hands in the air in a universal gesture of surrender. "Good, now we can get him to talk," Indiana said, one hand to his already bruising neck. "That was nice and easy."

" _Ugokanai! Te agatte!_ "

Chang dropped the gun and raised his hands. "Uh, Dr. Jones..."

"Yeah, I get the general idea." Indiana closed his eyes for a long moment before slowly lifting his hands as well. "I had to say it, didn't I? Had to jinx myself."

The newly arrived Japanese soldiers spread out, covering their prisoners. Indiana counted seven, and none of them close enough to reach with a surprise attack. If they moved forward just a little more...

But luck wasn't with Indiana that day, and the soldiers managed to subdue both him and Chang. Tied and muttering, he was dragged out of the cave. They were driven back to Beijing in a jeep, as part of a caravan, and placed under the tender care of a gentleman named General Takashiro. Takashiro considerd Chang for a moment before shaking his head and giving orders to his men. He spoke to the frightened young man in Mandarin. "You're not under any charge, Chang Li-Wen. You're free to go."

Chang studied his freed wrists for a stunned moment before giving Indiana an apologetic look and racing out of the general's headquarters.

"You got a charge against _me_ , then? Curiosity a crime now?"

Takashiro switched to English. "So you are the famous Dr. Indiana Jones. I was surprised to hear that an American had visited Beijing University yesterday."

 _Betrayed,_ Indiana thought, _but by who?_

"If you are searching for the _Homo erectus_ bones, you've been misled," General Takashiro continued, searching Indiana's face for a reaction. "Your own army has possession of them."

"Yeah? Guess I'd better go home and take a look at them then."

Takashiro smiled. "I like a man with humor, Dr. Jones. You know and I know that you were not after the bones. So, I ask you, what _were_ you after?"

 _Could they not know what they have?_ Indiana remained silent.

"Let me make an educated guess, poor as a soldier's might be against an academic's. You want the texts, Dr. Jones."

"They belong in a museum! They should be studied and recorded by scholars!"

Takashiro nodded, as if Indiana had scored a point in some genteel debate. "Then you will no doubt be reassured to hear that some of Japan's best minds will be working on them shortly. They are being secured for transport to Tokyo as we speak."

"They _belong_ to _China_."

"But China is in no position to care for them. China is fighting itself. All of Asia is confused, Dr. Jones. We are here to put it back into order, to return civilization to the hopeless." This gentle-seeming man had in his eyes the clear, absolute certainty of the fanatic, and Indiana began to worry for the first time since landing in China. He had seen this kind of certainty before. _Nazis. And the Japanese?_ There had been rumors of collaboration, and the mess at the League of Nations in '33...

The general seemed to expect a response, so Indiana dragged himself back to the present. "That sounds... nice."

General Takashiro's smile twisted. "You don't sound very convinced, Dr. Jones. But I am not here to convince you. I am here to ask you politely to leave China. It's dangerous for scholars right now."

" _This_ is politely?" Indiana held up his tied wrists incredulously. "I'd hate to see how you treated someone _im_ politely!"

Takashiro simply continued to smile -- and waved as Indiana's guards marched him back to the jeep. He was to be driven to the port, where he would be packed off on the first ship that sailed. They had barely driven out of the temporary base on the outskirts of town when shouts of "Fire!" caused his two guards to slow their vehicle. All three men turned and craned their necks, staring at the thick plume of smoke rising from inside the base.

Gunshots rang out and a woman screamed. A door nearby slammed open, and a man staggered out, running from the base and toward their jeep. Soldiers crowded into the doorway behind him, and another round of shots was fired. The man stumbled and fell, but not before Indiana saw his face.

"Don't shoot!" he shouted in Mandarin, hoping the Japanese soldiers would understand Chinese. He swung out of the jeep despite his tied hands. His surprised guards stared at him for a moment before also shouting at the other soldiers to hold their fire. Indiana slid to his knees before the crumpled form.

"Chang. Chang!"

The young archaeologist coughed, his lungs straining. A small trickle of blood leaked out of the corner of his mouth. "Dr. Jones," he whispered. "I couldn't let them take them, Dr. Jones. Not our history."

"You started the fire, Chang? _The books?_ "

"Gone," Chang told him softly, and then the young man, too, was gone.

His two guards finally caught up to him and jerked him roughly to his feet, but Indiana offered no resistance. Sometimes it was too much, he reflected. Sometimes he was just so tired....

_________________________________________

Author's Notes: This was originally much more ambitious in scope, but got cut back majorly because of timing concerns. I hope it's still a good read. If you're disappointed, marginaliana, please let me know after the authors are revealed and I'll try to write something with a bit more meat to it! ;)

 


End file.
